i'm completing hard sudoku puzzles pretty easily but having no such luck with the leap to very hards, which leaves me a little frustrated because one set of games are too easy and the next seem too hard. i feel like there must some obvious trick(s) that i haven't clued into yet. (i only get them done through trial and error which seems not the most logical way to do it...) any advice?

Yes. By the way, welcome to the forum. Do a search on some combination of the following words, but always including the word "sudoku." Basic solving advanced techniques. There are plenty of sites with lots of help. Also read these forums. In the Daily Sudoku Puzzles forum there is generally a fairly detailed discussion of every Very Hard puzzle. Also, don't be afraid to ask questions on the forums, there are a lot of helpful people here and many of us learned a lot that way.